I generally divide jazz guitarists into three basic camps when it comes to improvising styles: Motif style, Cliche-based, and Stream of Consciousness. Obviously all players don’t fall completely into any of these camps but it helps me to organize things.

Motif-Based

A player in the Motif camp generally will take maybe 3 or 4 ideas throughout the course of a solo and just work and rework those same ideas using call and response and other techniques and usually with strong syncopated rhythm. So, by the end of the solo, you really have a sense that the player made “a statement” and told a story. Another defining characteristic of these solos is that the listener (non-musicans, too) can usually sing along with the solo. Wes Montgomery was obviously THE master here. The following solo on the song, “Impressions” makes this clear. I love this solo and sing along with it every time I hear it — as is the case with many of his solos. Check it out…

Stream of Consciousness

A Stream of consciousness approach would be exemplified by pattern based playing like 1235 patterns, long sequential ideas, modal, etc.. Coltrane, Pat Metheny, etc… The main focus is on relatively complex harmony and patterns with somewhat of a deemphasis on rhythmic creativity. Generally, these solos are tough to sing along with. I can’t imagine many non-musicans who be able to do so. Usually, these musican’s have a very high degree of technical proficiency.

Here’s an example of what I mean:

Cliché-based

A cliché-based player is a player that works out lines beforehand and for the most part strings them together throughout a solo without much variation from what was worked out beforehand. The lines are executed with precision, played at the right time. The player knows the lines so well that they can play various lines all over the fretboard at any place throughout a given chord progression. Most straight eight-note players fall into this category. Martino, Conti, Mark elf. Singability usually falls in the medium to low range.

Here’s an example of Mark Elf in action (Awesome!):

So, the point of all this is that all of these players are great. Learn what you like or don’t like about their playing. Incorporate aspects of what you like. Get rid of what you don’t like (or don’t learn it in the first place). Just think long and hard about why you like certain players and don’t like others and base your approach to guitar on that.

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